OLDS — Two Canadian war veterans were interviewed in Olds recently for a website that documents the stories of veterans across the country.
Al Cameron of Sylvan Lake interviewed 99-year-old Second World War vet Peter Kraft of Olds and Dennis Sjolie of Red Deer March 24 in the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #105.
Cameron runs a website called Veterans Voices of Canada.
He’s constantly looking for opportunities to record the stories, photos and videos of military veterans.
He’s especially anxious to do so for veterans of the Second World War and the Korean War before they all pass away. He also documents people who were in countries that were occupied during war, such as . Holland and France and those occupied by Japan.
Kraft served with the Calgary Highlanders during the Second World War.
He was hit with shrapnel and was hospitalized. By the time hospital officials released him to go home, the war ended.
Sjolie served as a petty officer in the navy from 1968 to 1974 spending the last years of his service aboard a submarine, the HMCS Rainbow.
Cameron learned of Kraft from the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #105 in Olds.
Sjolie often comes into a mini-museum Cameron runs in Red Deer called the Veterans Voices of Canada’s History Interest and Learning Centre. He agreed to join Kraft in Olds for the interview.
Kraft was deployed to France shortly after the D-Day landing in June 1944. The crew fired three-inch mortars.
He was hit with shrapnel when bombs from a couple of German planes landed nearby.
“He got peppered all over the place, but basically it went through his lungs and did a lot of damage in his torso,” Cameron said.
“He was in too rough of shape to be sent back to action and they decided that they were sending him back to Canada. A day before he got back to Canada, the war was over.
“He still carries a couple of pieces of shrapnel in his body as we speak. I was lucky to meet him. He's lucky to survive that.”
Cameron said he didn’t ask the two men for their thoughts about current conflicts in the world, like the wars in Ukraine or the Gaza Strip.
“I don't to get too much into the politics,” he said.
Cameron started his website in 2005. Since then, he said, he’s interviewed more than 2,000 veterans of the Second World War, the Korean War, the war in Afghanistan and “everything in between.”
He said he was spurred to set up the website by the fact he had several family members who served in the First and Second World Wars as well as other conflicts around the world.
He has great respect for all veterans – including these two – for their service to the country and wants to document their stories before they all pass away.
Cameron is certain there are still many more veterans for him to interview – in Central Alberta and across the country.
“We just have to find them and have them approach me -- contact us -- and to do an interview,” he said.
“Every veteran has a story as much as they think they do not have a story. They do have a story and it's important for not only Canadian history, but for military history in general.
“We have to document the service of these amazing, amazing people. They've done something really special.
“They've signed up, they served in and they sacrificed in so many different ways, and we need to know who these people are, what they did for us. We need them out there to be seen.”
Anyone who knows of a veteran Cameron might want to interview is invited to phone 403.358.6313 email him at [email protected]
“They can just tell me if they were veteran themselves, (or) let me know if they know of a veteran,” he said.
In addition to going on his website, Cameron said the stories he obtains also go out to the world via social media.
Cameron said the site takes donations from individuals and organizations to fund the work.
He’s hoping one day his work will get into the National Archives.
“We raise funds to do what we do in different ways, but we need funds to keep doing what we're doing too. So if the federal government stepped up and was able to help us do this, continue doing this, that would be a huge, huge thing,” he said.
